Author Archives: Darrell Goodliffe

Whenever a particularly horrific criminal case is in the media spotlight there are inevitably calls for the reintroduction of capital punishment. Either for the ‘specific case in question’ or, more generally, for the specific type of crime committed. It’s to be expected from ‘foaming at the mouth’ right-wingers, but such views are also shared by many members of the general public.

We have seen that this week on Lib Dem Voice and the comments on Baby P. Nobody is under any illusions about the horrific nature of this case and the deplorable nature of the crimes committed. I think …

Stephen Tall, starting a debate last week on the Lib Dems’ position in the polls, unintentionally started a quite different debate regarding the specific issue of smoking and liberty.

Laying my cards on the table from the start; I am a smoker and have been for over a year although I am in the throes of trying to cut back. Despite this, when it was introduced I just about came out in favour of the ban because I think there was enough evidence that the public health concerns are genuine, and, ultimately, I was prepared to trade a little of my individual liberty in this instance. You can debate the scientific evidence for and against this point ad infinitum, but there is also the issue that smoking smells pretty terrible etc, etc.

In these circumstances I found it possible to support the restriction on my liberty because I was imposing on others. Could you possibly extend that logic to support a ban in all public places? Yes, I guess you possibly could, but this would be a point where a line is crossed because the effects of second-hand smoking were exacerbated by being in a confined space. Ultimately smokers are usually aware of the risks and it is their decision whether to take that risk or not. It is a question of whether people have the right to control and govern what they do with their own bodies. Smoking in a confined space took that right away from other people, but smoking in an open space where air can circulate does not.

The Guardian reported recently that the latest smoking figures show nine million people still smoke – which is a minority but nonetheless a sizeable one. Disproportionately it is people on lower incomes who smoke the most (although income is not a sole determinant):

According to Professor Martin Jarvis, a psychologist at University College London and a leading specialist in the field of smoking and health inequality, this is not a question solely of income: every main indicator of a lower socio-economic status is likely, independent of each of the others, to predict a higher rate of smoking. If your educational level is below the average, you are more likely to smoke. If you live in rented or overcrowded accommodation, you are more likely to smoke. Ditto if you do not have access to a car, are unemployed, or on state income benefit.”

So, people who think higher taxation is the answer should consider this; that you are already hitting people hard who are at the bottom of the pile.

Well, Norman Baker’s proposals to scrap the Oath of Allegiance certainly caused a stir on Liberal Democrat Voice, didn’t they? Jennie Rigg and others were certainly most riled by the ‘crawling out of the woodwork’ of ‘little republicans’.  She feels that the role of the monarchy in a constitutional monarchy state is ‘largely symbolic’. It is thus perhaps not surprising that she is vexed by the importance attached to the issue of a head of state she sees as largely symbolic. However, thankfully others do not share her view and as the Daily Mail has recently reported, …

Figures carried on the Liberal Democrat’s national website reveal some quite shocking statistics. Over 70,000 young people have been admitted to hospital for self-harm related injuries in the last four years, an increase of 35%; 4,000 have been admitted for eating disorders, which represents an increase of 10%.

Defining self-harm can be problematic. I have seen websites which define it broadly enough to include smoking and the use of narcotics. A broad definition is not helpful because there are clear differences.

For example, a smoker or a drug addict will become chemically addicted to their particular vice (although they …

Battlestar Gallactica, the cult science-fiction television show, starts its fourth and final season this week. Since 2004 it has won some critical acclaim and a cult following despite being confined to satellite TV.

Although reading too much into what remains a fictional show produced for entertainment is tricky, it’s hard to avoid the imprint made on the show by the ‘war on terror’. Other big issues are tackled but the underlying premise of the show is undoubtedly dealing with a post 9/11 world. The premise, of a civilisation on the brink and on the run is unquestionably one that dominates political dialogue day in and day out. Impending economic upheavals are only likely to deepen this feeling of drift and in some quarters of outright despair with the ‘state we are in’.

BSG ‘ReImagined’ began back in 2004 with ‘humanities’ children’, the robotic Cylons, who can now take on human appearance launching a massive strike against the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. William Adama’s Battlestar Gallactica, a relic from the first Cylon war due to be pensioned off as a museum, is the only Battlestar left standing after the Colonies’ defence system is crippled. Nuclear holocaust ensues and the Colonies are set aflame. This is definitely how 9/11 felt to a lot of people – like it was the end of the world, the ‘end of everything’. Terrorism’s great power has always lain in it’s ability to inflict damage, but, more potently, also in the shadows it creates in people’s minds.

In reality, it was not the end of the world or anything even remotely like it but it was the end of a sense of security that ‘our’ way of doing things would be left permanently unchallenged having survived the Cold War.

50,000 survive, and the subsequent episodes follow those 50,000 in their quest to find a mythical 13th colony, Earth. Of course, with the Cylons being able to assume human form this causes a mass questioning of identity Here we have a discourse on the ‘war on terrors’ recruitment to the side of the terrorists of many people who ‘look like us’, or else share our nationality. The ‘enemy’ is not a foreign state – it is stateless – and this in and of itself is challenging us to think outside of the box.

The question of legitimate grievance is also raised. Some of the Cylons are religious zealots, hell-bent on imposing their ‘god’ on humanity (something that is emphasised in series 3 as the Cylons occupy New Caprica) while others harbor serious anger towards humanity for the enslavement and abasement of their race.

Values and established ways of doing things are constantly questioned as the fleet finds itself fighting not just the Cylon’s but it’s own demons; the savagery and baseness of the struggle to survive, the difficult choices that are faced it in that struggle.

We need to be asking ourselves those same questions.

Is it good enough for us to present an image of ourselves as a faultless enduring force for good? Or should we be honest about the times when our foreign policy has shown a callous disregard for the human consequences of our actions?

I am sure I speak for everybody reading this when I express disgust at the recent actions of the Chinese government in Tibet; however what to do in response is far from a given. Calls for an outright boycott of the 2008 games, hosted by Beijing, remain relatively few and far between at the present time with more serious consideration being given to a call for a boycott of opening ceremony are more wide-spread and have been given an airing by prominent politicians like Nancy Pelosi, speaker for the US House of Representatives.

Meanwhile European politicians are making noises in favour of boycotting the opening ceremony. The President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering, told Germany’s Bild am Sonntag that ‘boycott measures’ could be justified. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has hinted he may not attend the opening ceremony and it is a French organisation, Reporters Without Borders, that is at the forefront of the campaign for a ‘political boycott’ of the opening ceremony. It conducted a poll which found a clear majority (53%-42%) in favour of Sarkozy boycotting the opening and a large minority (41%) in favour of a total boycott by French athletes.

Olympic committees have however opposed the boycott; complaining variously that the athletes and Chinese people will be the ones to suffer or that such issues simply should not be allowed to interfere with sport. Russian and Australian ministers have joined the opposition camp; the Russian government said that it would like to;

underscore that efforts to politicize the holding of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in China are unacceptable,”

and Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith added:

I very strongly believe that we should not in any way bring the Olympics or call the Olympics into question.”

Politics spilling over into sport is not, of course, without precedent – there are numerous instances of the Olympics themselves being involved in political brinkmanship. China itself put pressure on Canada to not allow the Taiwanese team to compete as the ‘Republic of China’ at the Montreal games in 1976. It is hard to avoid the impression that politicians opposed to the boycott are taking as much a political position as it’s proponents. Russian memories no doubt reach back to the 1980 Moscow games and Australia no doubt seeks to cause the minimum offence to a near-neighbour and trading partner; Beijing itself will no doubt use the games to promote not just China but also bolster the credibility of it’s regime. Therefore we can dismiss out of hand the facile arguments of the Olympic committees whose own athletes are uncomfortable and want the International Olympic Committee to make a stand.

If the IOC wished for a non-political games then it is hard to see why it chose China in the first place with its government that is rightly bitterly disliked by people who hold democratic ideals close to their heart.

Several issues have placed religion and it’s role in politics in the spotlight this week.

Labour has found itself in hot water over allowing a free vote on the bill that will allow the creation hybrid human-animal embryos. Meanwhile, across the pond, Barack Obama is assessing the damage done to his campaign by the comments of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright. The Pope’s baptised an Italian born Muslim convert as part of his Easter message in what was a somewhat ill-advised piece of showmanship. Here on Liberal Democrat Voice we have had quite a lively debate around faith schools.

First, let’s set some parameters for the debate.

Religious faith, or lack of it, is a matter of personal conviction – but the business of government is to govern an entire society comprised of different levels and types of individual belief. Modern, democratic states must be secular (not atheist) in nature. This is especially true in the age of the ‘war on terror’, when fundamentalist ideologues try and portray secularism as merely a covert tool of Christian domination.

Secularism is a cornerstone of moder democracy, it is a founding principle of democratic nations and direct and principled break from a past in which rulers claimed legitimacy from divine inheritance. It is more than just a fancy word, it must be at the heart of democracy because it is the principle of the predominance of the people’s will over patronage allegedly handed on down from the heavens.

It is not essential to have religious faith to share a set of moral values or indeed to ‘belong’; it is easier and far more healthy to unite around human centered values in beliefs, such as belief in the innate capacity of humanity to better itself. More often than not, religion does more to divide than unite, as we are seeing day-after-day in the world at large.

It coheres a specific ‘group identity’ but part of that process is unity against the other groups. Saying religion is a unifying force is a bit like saying a love of football unites a nation – try telling that to a room full of Tottenham and Arsenal or Manchester United and Manchester City fans.

Lord Goldsmith would like schoolchildren to swear an oath of allegiance to better define our sense of Britishness. Poor unfortunate children are to be made to swear the oath to Queen and country (presumably); one wonders if the new ‘citizens’ will get a certificate or baseball cap to celebrate their inclusion. This is the worse example that could be possibly imagined of a bungled attempt to impose values of tolerance on people from above; the very result of which is the fostering of the intolerance and bigotry which the measures are supposed to stymie.

Firstly, many will object to swearing an oath of allegiance to the Queen or the institution of the monarchy. In a democratic society it is increasingly an anachronism and I think it should be noted that nations which have formed their identity in the process of democratic rebellions against monarchical rule (like the United States and France) already have days to celebrate citizenship such as the ones now being proposed. However, those days are a celebration of the achievements of the people. It is a worthwhile point that it seems a little unfair to ask a Catholic to swear allegiance to a throne that anybody sharing their religion would be prohibited from sitting on; the notion that the monarchy embodies ‘Britishness’ is to view it from the perspective of a visiting tourist.

Often in politics, as in life, we are faced with choices we simply don’t want to make; for whatever reason none of the options on offer seem to offer what we really want. Such a choice faced both the Liberal Democrat leaders and the eventual rebels in the recent vote on the question of whether there would be a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. As we know, the vote resulted in the biggest Liberal Democrat rebellion in history and resignation of three front bench spokesmen.

Were the rebels right to defy the three-line whip and vote with the Conservatives? The answer …

I recently applied to join the Liberal Democrats; something that represents something of a political full-circle for me. During the 1992 General Election my Primary School held a mock election and I was part of the team that led the Lib Dems to a resounding victory. After that my political activism drew me into the Labour Party (I was there on that night in ’97) and then leftwards and, finally, after resigning from the Labour Party for a second time over the invasion of Iraq, out of active politics altogether.

Nick Clegg’s recent statement on Britain becoming a ‘Prozac nation’ is what drew me back to the Lib Dems; to me it showed willingness to tackle an issue that politicians rarely tackle, and, if they do, rarely with bold and innovative insight. Also, Barack Obama’s campaign for the Presidential nomination has revitalised my belief in progressive politics. His attempt to build a true progressive coalition between traditional core progressives and disaffected, ‘small-c’ conservatives is something that I believe can be emulated in the United Kingdom, and it is something that I believe the Liberal Democrats are best placed to do.